Vid: "In Our Own Time, With Our Own Hands" [NX, Maggie and Joel]

[icepixie]

Title: In Our Own Time, With Our Own Hands
Song/Artist: "Red Rover," Rosie Thomas
Vidder: icepixie
Fandom: Northern Exposure
Length: 3:16
Summary: "Grow wild according to thy nature," writes Thoreau in Walden. Maggie and Joel make their own ways in Alaska.
Thanks to wintercreek, who gave this the best, most tireless beta any vid could ask for.

Download from MediaFire (36 MB).

I tried a number of new (for me) things in this vid, including longer clips, cross-dissolve transitions rather than simple cutting, and a narrative that requires fairly detailed knowledge of the show to make its full impact. Let me know what you think!

Comments

[toft]

I've never seen the show, but I loved this - the slow, lingering shots of the plane, especially, and the gentle arc I could see in the vid even without really knowing much detailed about the story. The song is a lovely match, too.

[icepixie]

Thank you! I'm so glad to hear that it's intelligible without a lot of knowledge of the source, too.

[wintercreek]

Oh yay, oh yay, you posted it and it is LOVELY! But you already know how much I adore this vid and its message. :D

[icepixie]

\o/! And it would not be half as good without all of your magnificent betaing!

[twtd]

This was soooo pretty. I just watched it twice in a row and loved it. It's been so long since I've seen Northern Exposure (though I never did watch all of it. It may have come on past my bedtime when it first started airing *blush*)

[icepixie]

Thank you!

It may have come on past my bedtime when it first started airing *blush*

Heh. I think I was...six? when it started airing, so yeah, I never watched it when it was on either. DVD sets = love.

[jesse_the_k]

Lovely! You captured excellent snapshots from a show which really resonated with me (I was Joel's age while watching it). The music-visual match was nice, and the non-specifity of the song worked well with the gentle story in the vid.

(Damn, young!Rob was quite young, and young!Janine was so charming when she was stroking her airplane.)

[icepixie]

Thank you! I'm so glad you liked it. NX is my favorite TV show of all time. It's this perfect mixture of characters I love and identify with (especially Ed), comedy, allusion/intertextuality, and just...quirk. I went to undergrad in a teeny little town, and I marveled more than once over the years about how I was basically going to college in Cicely.

(Damn, young!Rob was quite young, and young!Janine was so charming when she was stroking her airplane.)

I'm still a little bit in love with Maggie. And with her airplane.

[luzula]

I've never seen this show, but it's been on my to-watch list for some time. I didn't actually get much of the vid, but it makes me want to watch the show.

[icepixie]

The show is so great, I can't even tell you. So much love. I'm glad the vid made you want to watch it.

[chantal87.livejournal.com]

That was lovely.
It makes me want to drag out all my dvd's

[icepixie]

Thank you!

(Also, ICON LOVE.)

[vivien]

What a beautiful video. It was very poignant.

[icepixie]

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it.

[china_shop]

Oh, that's gorgeous. I love how it takes its time, especially the lingering shots of the plane. The song works wonderfully too. ♥

ETA: I haven't watched the show in years, but it still worked really well for me.

[icepixie]

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it, and that it made sense without having recently watched the show.

[diarmi.livejournal.com]

Oh, I liked it! I loved NE once so much and still have a lot of sentiment for it. Thanks for memory:)))

[icepixie]

Thank you! :)

[alwaysaddled.livejournal.com]

I miss that show so. Thanks for this!

[icepixie]

I'm glad you liked it!

[forsweatervests.livejournal.com]

Okay, speaking as someone who's never ever seen this show? It was beautiful. It seemed like a lovely, doomed love story to me, but I choose to believe that they both went on to lead full, rich lives. He, at least, is still surrounded by a self-made family, and looked so happy. In my head, he made a choice not to follow her and stay in the city, and I don't think he regretted that choice. In my interpretation.

[icepixie]

Thank you!

Your interpretation is not totally dissimilar to what happened on the show, actually. (To wit: Pre-show, Maggie leaves the confining upper class family she was born into and rebuilds herself as a bush pilot in Alaska. In the pilot, Joel comes to Alaska to work off a scholarship, desperate to get back to New York ASAP. They irritate the crap out of each other. He eventually, reluctantly, becomes part of the small town community he's moved to, falls in love with and gets engaged [briefly, like for three hours] to Maggie, but contract issues with Rob Morrow ensured that Joel returned to NYC pretty soon after, in theory five years older and wiser, while Janine Turner was still contracted for the rest of the season Maggie realized she belonged in Alaska. Alas.)

[forsweatervests.livejournal.com]

And yet, somehow opposite! The explanation really helps, I have to say, but even without it, I think your vid stands on its own. Very...poignant, and it would be melancholy, if it weren't for the images right before the three minute mark, with the dinner scene, the photograph, and the closed --> open moment. I very much liked it, and it's another little push towards actually watching the original source. Crazy, I know. Who watches original source material anymore?

falls in love with and gets engaged [briefly, like for three hours] to Maggie

Three hours their-lives-wise, or three hours (episodes) real-time? I'm sensing there's a story behind this?

[icepixie]

And yet, somehow opposite!

It's amazing what a few little changes can do, isn't it?

The explanation really helps, I have to say, but even without it, I think your vid stands on its own.

That is so good to hear.

Very...poignant, and it would be melancholy, if it weren't for the images right before the three minute mark, with the dinner scene, the photograph, and the closed --> open moment.

Yeah, the song is a bit like that too...almost despairing, but hopeful in places.

I very much liked it, and it's another little push towards actually watching the original source.

OMG, the show is so, so, so, so good, I can't even say. Ahhhh, I love that show. (Uh. Minus most of the sixth and last season, anyway.)

Crazy, I know. Who watches original source material anymore?

Hee! I do, actually. I always nod my head when I read that fanworks can get people into a source, but that's totally a lie for me; I rarely read fic/watch vids without knowing the source.

Three hours their-lives-wise, or three hours (episodes) real-time? I'm sensing there's a story behind this?

Three hours in their lives. Basically, at this point they've been going out for not quite a year, and they're sitting on a plane waiting to take off and go to Russia. IIRC, a medical conference is involved. The plane keeps getting delayed, other irritations from the passengers and whatnot pop up, and they have a giant fight, after which Joel asks Maggie to marry him. (This always struck me as foolish.) She agrees, they decide to get off the plane and go back home, and once they get home, they decide just to live together for a while and then revisit the marriage thing. The next episode, every time they try to have sex, a gun randomly goes off somewhere nearby, so they decide it's just not working and Joel runs off to a Native village. (Uhhhh, the show relies heavily on magical realism. And did I mention that the sixth season was truly, astoundingly bad? I swear, the rest of the show is much, much better than these two episodes. Tonewise, the good seasons are actually extremely reminiscent of Due South. Joel's and Fraser's journeys mirror each other's in a lot of ways.)

[forsweatervests.livejournal.com]

I always nod my head when I read that fanworks can get people into a source, but that's totally a lie for me; I rarely read fic/watch vids without knowing the source.

This...happens occasionally to me. SPN, SGA, Firefly (long, boring story there, trust me), AIRPF (yes, yes, I know), Temeraire, and so far...not, this year. What fandom's mainly done is motivate me to stick with a show, or get back into it, or even just alerted me to it's presence sans any fan-made material (except for squee). I find fandom intro'd me to stuff when I was too cautious on my time to lend it to source material I wasn't sure was going to pan out. I've had a lot more free time this year, but I'm expecting next (school) year to pick right back up again, so I'll probably be right back to using fandom to weed out the weak.

(Uhhhh, the show relies heavily on magical realism. And did I mention that the sixth season was truly, astoundingly bad? I swear, the rest of the show is much, much better than these two episodes. Tonewise, the good seasons are actually extremely reminiscent of Due South. Joel's and Fraser's journeys mirror each other's in a lot of ways.)

Spanish lit and English lit major here. Magical realism makes my year, no lie. To be honest, it sounds ridiculous in that awesome, we've-reached-our-limit-so-break-out-the-crack kind of way re: the sixth season. I heard it won all sorts of awards, as well, so my guess is that it really was a good show.

[icepixie]

I occasionally use fandom as a way of separating the wheat from the chaff. Not through fanworks, but if a friend whose taste I generally enjoy starts babbling about a show or book series, I'll check out the source. Actually, that's probably how I find what little TV I watch; otherwise, I just wouldn't watch anything. (I don't have a TV, so I don't see commercials or anything.)

I think my problem with reading fanfic before seeing a source is that I see/hear things I read like movies in my head, and I like to have the actor's voice/image to work with.

Spanish lit and English lit major here. Magical realism makes my year, no lie.

Oh, fabulous! I just got an MA in English, and I adore magical realism as well. (I did take Spanish in high school, but I don't think that had anything to do with it--we didn't read much lit at that level.) You would definitely enjoy the show, then.

To be honest, it sounds ridiculous in that awesome, we've-reached-our-limit-so-break-out-the-crack kind of way re: the sixth season.

Eh, I don't know that it would really be considered cracky. It was just sort of directionless more than anything else.

[forsweatervests.livejournal.com]

I think my problem with reading fanfic before seeing a source is that I see/hear things I read like movies in my head, and I like to have the actor's voice/image to work with.

Completely understandable. Once I see some source material, everything in fic flows much more smoothly for me.

Oh, fabulous! I just got an MA in English, and I adore magical realism as well.

Hey, congratulations! I'm applying to doctoral programs in the fall for Spanish lit, so hopefully next year I'll be right where you are. Are you planning on a doctorate in addition to your Master's, or is this where the find-a-job thing comes in?

Eh, I don't know that it would really be considered cracky. It was just sort of directionless more than anything else.

Dang. So many shows fall into that trap. Well, I generally prefer beginnings to middles or endings, so it probably won't matter much.

[icepixie]

Hey, congratulations! I'm applying to doctoral programs in the fall for Spanish lit, so hopefully next year I'll be right where you are. Are you planning on a doctorate in addition to your Master's, or is this where the find-a-job thing comes in?

Thanks! How is your application process going? Have you had to suffer through the GRE yet? (The regular one wasn't as bad as I'd feared, but oh, God, the subject GRE. I still have RAGE about that--why does a test over the entire canon even exist DEAR GOD WHY? Uh, not that that has any relevance to Spanish.)

Me, I'm stopping with this degree for a few different reasons. The biggest is that I haaaaate teaching. Secondary ones are that I loooove editorial work, there are oh-so-few tenure-track jobs anymore, and that while I adored researching and writing my thesis and most of my papers for coursework, at the same time, it was extremely burnout-inducing--it's not a schedule I could keep up for the rest of my working life, or even for five more years of a doctoral program.

(I wrote a lot about my feelings on grad school here and in the comments, if you're curious.)

[forsweatervests.livejournal.com]

How is your application process going? Have you had to suffer through the GRE yet?

Took 'em twice: once in November of '08, and again in December of '09. I was having an alternately horrible and wonderful semester when I first took them, and literally only studied the week before, I was so busy. My scores were okay, but I took them again and they were much, much better. I've got a list of schools I'll be applying to; now I just have to actually contact some of the professors and see how amazing their programs are. I'm not totally into the idea of being stuck in Vermont or Michigan, but if I learned one thing from having to transfer undergrad, it's to look for a program, not a place.

oh, God, the subject GRE. I still have RAGE about that--why does a test over the entire canon even exist DEAR GOD WHY? Uh, not that that has any relevance to Spanish.)

Thank the baby Jesus. One of the big reasons I decided not to pursue English any further - despite my enormous love for it - was the concentration on British literature. Specifically, pre-modernism British literature. I literally cannot stand it. I had visceral reactions to those classes, and my college - I graduated from Smith, so you'd *think* they'd be a little progressive, right? wrong. - focused nearly exclusively on British lit in all the reqs for the English major. I'm a 20th-century American lit buff. Harlem Renaissance all the way, baby.

The biggest is that I haaaaate teaching.

Oh, jeez, I like it too much, you know? I'm one of those obnoxious people who spontaneously breaks out into lecture. My family puts up with it, but I've learned how to shut up mid-point. Very, very hard to do.

while I adored researching and writing my thesis and most of my papers for coursework, at the same time, it was extremely burnout-inducing--it's not a schedule I could keep up for the rest of my working life, or even for five more years of a doctoral program.

Yeah, I wasn't totally sure at the end of undergrad if I could. But after having had so much free time since, I really can't wait to get back to it. I need to have my free time filled, otherwise I just bore the crap out of myself.

(I wrote a lot about my feelings on grad school here and in the comments, if you're curious.)

I am, actually, quite curious. What I learn about people's opinions of grad school, I tend to find in dribs and drabs. It's rare I get so much at once!

[icepixie]

if I learned one thing from having to transfer undergrad, it's to look for a program, not a place.

I wouldn't completely discount place, though; if you HATEHATEHATE winter, you're going to be miserable in Montana even with the greatest program ever, you know? A good program can make up for a host of sins, but if it's the only good thing about life for those years, that would suck.

Thank the baby Jesus. One of the big reasons I decided not to pursue English any further - despite my enormous love for it - was the concentration on British literature. Specifically, pre-modernism British literature. I literally cannot stand it. I had visceral reactions to those classes, and my college - I graduated from Smith, so you'd *think* they'd be a little progressive, right? wrong. - focused nearly exclusively on British lit in all the reqs for the English major. I'm a 20th-century American lit buff. Harlem Renaissance all the way, baby.

That is so strange! I went to Kenyon, and our requirements allows us to do practically anything we wanted, as long as we covered roughly two centuries somehow and didn't stay entirely in Brit or American lit. I didn't take any medieval lit or Victorian BritLit, for example. (I was a creative writing concentrator, but that only affected my electives, not the requirements.) That's too bad that they made you take a bunch of classes you weren't interested in.

Grad school, for what it's worth, is entirely different. There aren't any period requirements, or there weren't at UT, anyway; we had a certain number of classes we had to take, and that was it. You took the courses that were relevant to your interests. The five-page reading list for my oral exam covered a broad swath from Beowulf to Song of Solomon, but seemed relatively balanced between eras and nationalities.

Teaching: I could actually do lecturing okay. Teaching composition, though, requires discussion-leading skills (or at least I think it does if you want to make it worthwhile), and I sooo don't have them. Plus grading got to be a real drag.

Yeah, I wasn't totally sure at the end of undergrad if I could. But after having had so much free time since, I really can't wait to get back to it. I need to have my free time filled, otherwise I just bore the crap out of myself.

It will definitely fill up your free time. :)

I am, actually, quite curious. What I learn about people's opinions of grad school, I tend to find in dribs and drabs. It's rare I get so much at once!

Glad to be of service! I don't think I've written anything else quite that extensive, but you might find something helpful on my voluminous "grad school" and "thesis" tags. There's also a book that I've seen good reviews of, but haven't yet read myself, called Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School.

[forsweatervests.livejournal.com]

A good program can make up for a host of sins, but if it's the only good thing about life for those years, that would suck.

Well, I can't argue with that. I think, for me, the program matters more than the place. I can learn to get along anywhere (though the first two years are always kinda dicey). I can't learn the same information just anywhere, though. I transferred as an undergrad, and spent two years depressed and miserable because I was taking graduate classes as a college freshman/sophomore, and I was doing better than the grad students. It was ridiculous; I'm embarrassed to have to admit that.


That is so strange! I went to Kenyon, and our requirements allows us to do practically anything we wanted, as long as we covered roughly two centuries somehow and didn't stay entirely in Brit or American lit. I didn't take any medieval lit or Victorian BritLit, for example. (I was a creative writing concentrator, but that only affected my electives, not the requirements.) That's too bad that they made you take a bunch of classes you weren't interested in.

I am so, so jealous of you right now, I can't even describe it. I hated those classes with a passion, hated them. I kept petitioning the board to change the recs, but nooo, our culture as a colonized nation must be catered to!

Okay, whining aside, seriously. One year-long British lit to the 18th century class required. One on Milton, one on Shakespeare, one on Chaucer. One *modern* Brit lit course. One American lit course prior to the 1900s. (This was the only one I enjoyed.) And then, of course, your electives, all of which I did in either creative writing or Afro-Am lit, which were fabulous. I was thinking about grad school in Afro-Am lit, but so few courses were available to me that it would be a long shot getting in. As is, I'm probably going to do a thesis contrasting Afro-Am lit with Latin American lit. They've got a lot in common, most likely due to Europe's colonization efforts overseas.

On another note, that book looks hilarious, and probably life-saving.

[icepixie]

I transferred as an undergrad, and spent two years depressed and miserable because I was taking graduate classes as a college freshman/sophomore, and I was doing better than the grad students.

OUCH.

Now that I think of it, I remember other students in my MA cohort talking about having to take survey courses in undergrad. We...didn't do that. We had courses like "20th Century Irish Lit" and "The Con Man in American Fiction 1850-1900" and "British Nationalism in the 18th Century." (Uhhhh, basically if you'd just completed your diss this was a dream school to teach at.) And I remember that our requirements were broken up into nine areas (Old English, Medieval, Renaissance/17th Century, 18th Century Brit, 19th Century Brit, 20th Century Brit or non-American, Pre-1900 American, Post-1900 American, Theory), and you had to take a class in at least six areas, then some number of electives, I think four or six or something.

I always used to wonder what the hell the Norton anthologies and the like were used for, because we never had them--it was always novels or books of poetry related to the theme an time period of the course, which was, you know, fairly narrow. And then I started studying for my orals in a group with my classmates, and they were all, "Oh, we did this in my survey course. Let me just pull out my Norton..." And then the light dawned.

As is, I'm probably going to do a thesis contrasting Afro-Am lit with Latin American lit.

That sounds very nifty indeed.

[forsweatervests.livejournal.com]

Now that I think of it, I remember other students in my MA cohort talking about having to take survey courses in undergrad. We...didn't do that. We had courses like "20th Century Irish Lit" and "The Con Man in American Fiction 1850-1900" and "British Nationalism in the 18th Century." (Uhhhh, basically if you'd just completed your diss this was a dream school to teach at.) And I remember that our requirements were broken up into nine areas (Old English, Medieval, Renaissance/17th Century, 18th Century Brit, 19th Century Brit, 20th Century Brit or non-American, Pre-1900 American, Post-1900 American, Theory), and you had to take a class in at least six areas, then some number of electives, I think four or six or something.

Ohhhh, you braggart. Why didn't I go to Kenyon? I looked at them, and everything...

Yeah, survey courses are the mainstay of the English department at Smith. The Spanish department, on the other hand, was exactly as you're describing Kenyon's English dept. Fantastic small-scope courses that really went someplace. A Spanish degree is exactly the same as an English degree, except that it takes place in a different language. Very, very fun for me.

That sounds very nifty indeed.

I really hope so!

[icepixie]

Why didn't I go to Kenyon? I looked at them, and everything...

The Kenyon English department would've loved you.

A Spanish degree is exactly the same as an English degree, except that it takes place in a different language.

That is awesome. I took through AP in high school, and then left it behind. (Well, okay, not entirely, because last year I had to take a foreign language exam in order to get my MA. [Don't ask. Everyone requires them, for no actual reason I can discern.] I had to translate a passage in Spanish into English. I'm proud to say that despite not having taken it for eight years, I passed on the first try. This is not necessarily a show of my Spanish prowess; the test was terribly easy. They let you use a dictionary and everything.)

[forsweatervests.livejournal.com]

The Kenyon English department would've loved you.

::grin:: Aww, too nice.

last year I had to take a foreign language exam in order to get my MA. [Don't ask. Everyone requires them, for no actual reason I can discern.]

Weird. Like, very weird. Maybe to prove that you're a student of the world? That you can understand multiple cultures?

I passed on the first try. This is not necessarily a show of my Spanish prowess; the test was terribly easy. They let you use a dictionary and everything.)

Despite the dictionary, I'm sure there were still people who failed. You've still got to remember tenses, implied meanings, phrases, etc. I haven't taken Latin since freshman year of high school (roughly the same amount of time for me as there was for you and Spanish), and there's no way I'd be able to translate an entire paragraph, dictionary or not.

[icepixie]

Weird. Like, very weird. Maybe to prove that you're a student of the world? That you can understand multiple cultures?

I think the idea is that once, long ago, people used to write about English literature in other languages, and you should be able to read them. Or possibly that it would be nice not have to rely on translations for, like, random French phrases thrown into British Modernist texts. But even the faculty was sort of like, "Yeah, we don't know why that's there, or why PhD candidates have to know two foreign languages." But everywhere I applied had a language requirement.

[forsweatervests.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Since I never looked at any English programs, I was totally unaware of this. Everywhere I'm applying has a language program, but. Well. :-D I can see where French or German might be useful, at least to help with Old English translations, but if that's not your area of expertise, it seems a little useless. Or, at least, as useless as another language can be.

[delwyncole.livejournal.com]

Really lovely, makes me nostalgic for a show I haven't watched in years.

[icepixie]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it.